Marvel Super Heroes Role-Playing Game
Overview The Marvel Superheroes Role-Playing Game, published by TSR, Inc. under a license from Marvel Comics, was a superhero role-playing game designed by Jeff Grubb, with several relevant books written by Steve Winter. The game defined simple rules (with the more abridged official version being a 16-page book), using one single bright-colored table and percentile dices: Whenever a character (either a player or a non-player one) attempts a feat, one of the character's attributes was selected and a dice was thrown. The interesection between the dice result (in rows) and the level of the character's attribute (in columns) was checked, and the resulting color gave the result - White being a failure; green being a common success unless the task was particularly difficult; yellow a better success (e.g., instead of simply punching an enemy, the character slams the enemy); and red being the best possible result -similar to a "critical hit" in other games. Character's attributes have numeric values commonly between 0 and 100 -except for very powerful beings, cosmic entities and the like- with 6 being the level for an untrained human and 50 being the peak possibility for many beings -like Captain America's fighting progress or Spider-Man's agility. These numbers had no direct effect when playing -only when the player spends points to progress, as it is harder to improve an already high skill. Instead, these values are simplified using capitalized adjectives - anything between 5 and 7 is a "Typical" skill, and 46 to 62 is an "Amazing" skill. Keeping on the simple gaming style, each character had seven main attributes identified by the acronym FASERIP -which also became an unofficial name of the gaming system: Fighting, Agility, Strength, Endurance, Reason, Intuition, Psyche. The first four values added to provide a number of Health points, which was reduced whenever the character was damaged; the other three added to give Karma points, which were reduced whenever the character performed evil or unproper acts, increased whenever the character behaved correctly -both as a hero and as the character-, and spent to affect dice rolls and to improve the character's attributes. The character also had a Popularity value (which could be negative if the character was infamous) and a Resource value (to simplify access to money and access to certain items, instead of keeping the character's books). Some values could be temporarily modified, commonly moving them to the next column or columns forward or backward - e.g., a character wearing an exoskeleton can feel her Strenght being one column higher for practicular purposes as long as the exoskeleton is on; a character with a talent for Chemistry gest a bonus of one column to her Reason whenever the Reason roll is related to Chemistry; but a poisoned character can lose a column in some or all of their attributes. Collaborative action is also resolved with column shifts. Some rolls simply require the character to get a "green" result to succeed and, should they get "yellow" or "red", then the effect is simply better. Other rolls oppose the character's level to a fixed amount -also an adjective- that, when compared with the value, defines the needed result: If the requirement is up to 2 columns lower than the attribute value, it requires only a green result (below that, the success is automatic); if it equals the attribute, it requires a yellow; if it exceeds the attribute only in 1 column, it requires a red; if it exceeds the attribute in more than 1 column, it's impossible. Example: The character with Typical strenght would require a green result to break items of less than Typical strenght (such as crystal or wood); yellow to break Typical-strength items (like rubber or soft metals); and red to break Typical-plus-1-column-strenght items (like brick or aluminium); if the amount to break is too big, then the difficulty will be increased in one column. Breaking Adamantium (which is 7 columns over Typical) is beyond the Typical-Strenght character. The gamemaster, or Judge, can however allow a roll for this is she feels it is interesting. Each superpower also had a numeric value, and commonly added specific text-based rules to define the limitations of the characters, prompting the players to be creative in their use of superpowers. Specific rules were defined for certain aspects of the Marvel universe, such as developing innovative technology or using magic. This game allows -even encourages- the players to play as official Marvel superheroes instead of simply creating new, customized characters as in other franchises (e.g. West End Games' Star Wars role-playing game); but players can also generate new characters with a quick process, either by rolling dices to generate randomly each value; by selecting some of the values (players can select the powers they want, but not their value-otherwise they'll always ask for maximum); or even by taking a Marvel character not appearing in the books and adapting him. The game provided maps by fantasy cartographer David "Diesel" LaForce and cardboard miniatures, many of them drawn by artist Jeff Butler, representing the Marvel characters. These can be to define the character's position in a board on the table, as their orientation and distance can define whether a being was in range of another's powers or not. Published adventures commonly included maps of the specific "dungeons" that appear. Main Material The Marvel Super Heroes Role-Playing Game included several products published by TSR, Inc. in different formats from 1984 to 1993. Rule Box Sets Three box sets were published. Each set included all the needed material to start playing, including rules, campaign descriptions, example card templates and even maps; albeit further versions reviewed and improved the previous ones: * Marvel Super Heroes Basic Set (1984, 1991) ** Basic Set Battle Book ** Basic Set Campaign Book ** 1 adventure: Day of the Octopus ** 8 cardstock cut-outs. ** 1 map. ** 25 playing pieces. * Revised Basic Set (1991) ** Revised Basic Rule Book ** Revised Basic Campaign Book ** 56 character cards (including one blank) ** 2 maps ** 100 playing pieces. * Advanced Set (1986, 1992) ** Advanced Player's Book ** Advanced Judge's Book ** 1 map ** 80 stand-up figures. ** 48 character cards (including 3 blanks). Rule Modules Four books, tagged with the string "MA" (Marvel Accessory?) and a number, included more detailed information for specific aspects of the rules or for certain collectives in the campaign. * MA1: Children of the Atom - Advanced Game Official Guidebook to Mutants (1986) * MA2: Avengers Coast-to-Coast - Official Advanced Game Accessory (1986) * MA3: Ultimate Powers Book (1987) * MA4: Fantastic Four Compendium - Advanced Game Official Accessory (1987) Gamer's Handbook of the Marvel Universe Main article: Gamer's Handbook of the Marvel Universe Vol 1. Eight issues of the Gamer's Handbook (1988-1992) emulated the formula from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, with individual entries for superheroes, villains and teams; this time adding role-playing statistics, powers with specific rules (sometimes making a few assumptions to dodge ambiguities) and a paragraph of notes on how to role-play the character and describing anything -inclduing rules- that cannot be covered in other areas. The four first issues were encyclopedic in nature to cover heroes A to Z (first volume is A to D; second starts in E…); the last four issues each cover A to Z, and included only individuals from a given year or those who had suffered very relevant changes (E.g. #5 is "Update 1989). Adventure Modules Eighteen so-called adventures were published, nine of them with the string "MH" (Marvel Heroes?) and a number; the other nine with the string MHAC (Marvel Heroes Accessory?) and a number. Each adventure was an autonomous story. Some of the issues titled "MHAC" were however not adventures, but accessories for the game. * MH1: Breeder Bombs (1984) * MH2: Time Trap (1984) * MH3: Murderworld (1984) * MH4: Lone Wolves (1984) * MH5: Cat's Paw (1984) * MH6: Thunder Over Jotunheim (1985) * MH7: Last Resort (1985) * MH8: Fault Line (1985) * MH9: Gates of What If? (1986) * MHAC1: Judge's Screen (1984) * MHAC2: Avengers Assembled! (1984) * MHAC3: Adventure Fold-Up Figures (1984) * MHAC4: Pit of the Viper (1984) * MHAC5: Project Wideawake (1984) * MHAC6: New York, New York (1985) * MHAC7: Concret Jungle (1985) * MHAC8: Weapons Locker (1985) * MHAC9: Realms of Magic (1986) Game Modules Seven sagas of adventures or "game modules" were published. Each of these sagas included several published adventures, commonly three (except for Mutating Mutants that was the lone adventure of its own saga; and X-Terminate does not seem plotwise related to the rest of the "MSL" adventures). Although each adventure had its title, many of these sagas did not have a name. The sagas can be played in succession, with argumental sense; or individually even if the previous adventure is not available. Letter-and-number codes were used to identify the saga. * MHSP: ** MHSP1: Secret Wars (1984) ** MHSP2: Secret Wars II (1986) * MX: ** MX1: Nightmares of Futures Pasts (1987) ** MX2: The X-Potential (1987) ** MX3: Reap the Whirlwind (1987) ** MX4: Flames of Doom (1987) * ME: ** ME1: Cosmos Cubed (1988) ** ME2: Ragnarok and Roll (1988) ** ME3: The Left Hand of Eternity (1988) * MT: (named "Time Warp" in the cover of each adventure) ** MT1: All This and World War II (1989) ** MT2: The Weird, Weird West (1989) ** MT3: The Revenge of Kang (1989) * MLA: (named "the Gang Wars storyline" in the covers of MLA2 and MLA3) ** MLA1: After Midnight (1990) ** MLA2: Night Moves (1990) ** MLA3: Night Lives (1990) * MLBA ** MLBA1: Mutating Mutants (1990) * MSL: ** MSL1: X-Terminate (1991) ** MSL2: Warlord of Baluur (1991) ** MSL3: Spore of Arthros (1991) ** MSL4: Stygian Knight (1991) Campaign Book Sets Six boxed sets, similar in format to the Rule Box Sets, were published. Each contained several books and material with details on a given part of the Marvel Universe, including specific role-playing-game aspects like templates. * Deluxe Campaign Set (1989) ** Deluxe Campaign Set: Campaign Sourcebook ** Deluxe Campaign Set: Adventure Sourcebook ** Four maps * Uncanny X-Men Special Campaign Set ** The Uncanny X-Men: Adventure Book ** The Uncanny X-Men: Campaign Book ** The Uncanny X-Men: Roster Book * Lands of Dr. Doom Campaign Set (1992) ** Domains of Doom ** Machines of Doom ** Deeds of Doom ** Two maps * MHR1: X-Forces: The Mutant Update (1992) ** X-Forces: Campaign Book ** X-Forces: The Watcher's Chronicle ** Two maps ** Character fold-ups * MHR2: Webs: The Spider-Man Dossier (1993) ** Webs: The Spider-Man Dossier: The Watcher's Chronicle ** Webs: The Spider-Man Dossier: The Grandmaster's Log * MHR3: Avengers Archive (1993) ** Avengers Archive: The Watcher's Chronicle ** Avengers Archive: The Grandmaster's Log Miniature Sets Three sets of "Unpainted Metal Miniatures" were marketed: * Unpainted Metal Miniatures, Set 1 (1984) - 12 miniatures. * Unpainted Metal Miniatures, Set 2 (1984) - 12 miniatures. * Unpainted Metal Miniatures, Set 3 (1985) - 6 miniatures. Related material and other games Additional official material for the MSH RPG was published by the RPGA and in TSR's Dragon magazine - a column called "The Marvel-phile" periodically included information from Marvel characters that had not appeared in other products. TSR's Marvel Superheroes Role-Playing Game is not to be confused with other related games: * TSR also published eleven Adventure Gamebooks (1986-1989) that are tangentially related to the Role-Playing Game, but do not use the same rules and are single-player choose-your-own-adventure books. * A second role-playing game. Marvel Superheroes Adventure Game, was published by TSR or Wizards of the Coast (depending on the consulted source; the books say WotC) between 1998 and 1999. This one used cards instead of dices. * Marvel directly published The Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game between 2003 and 2004. * From 2012 to 2013, Margaret Weis Productions published Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (MHRP). * There is an ongoing effort to produce new updated materials in the form of free PDF format downloadable files. This coordinated effort is known as the Marvel Superheroes ™ Unofficial Canon Project. It is based on the Facebook group page here: MARVEL SUPERHEROES tm Unofficial Canon Project.